We are writing to thank you for making SOAP’s inaugural year such a impactful success! Please join us in celebrating where we have been in 2024 and in anticipating where we are headed in 2025! (Hint— there’s a BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!)
SOAP’s 2024 Accomplishments
Thanks to your incredible generosity, SOAP expanded our impact on orthopedic education at Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre by sponsoring surgeries for patients in need during our team’s trip to Tanzania for the month of February! More patients receiving surgeries provided more opportunities for KCMC residents to hone their skills and learn new techniques. The beauty of this teaching model is that not only do the patients SOAP sponsored in February benefit, but also all the future patients of these young Tanzanian orthopedists! Our US based team consisted of 4 orthopedic surgeons and 2 senior residents. Read more about these patients, their surgeries, and the teaching that was made possible on our website.
SOAP signed a formal Memorandum of Understanding with KCMC. We met with the hospital administrators to outline our relationship and establish our mutual goals for enhancing orthopedic instruction and patient care.
 |
SOAP continued its monthly ZOOM lectures for the Tanzanian residents, with many US orthopedists volunteering to teach. The residents are so pleased with this lecture series that they send requests for specific topics! The relationships forged with the ortho residents from KCMC continue to deepen and multiply. Almost daily, our Tanzanian friends send messages, complete with X-rays, asking for advice on patent care. It is exciting to see their knowledge base expand through their questions and treatment plan development! When the senior KCMC residents completed their certification exams this year, many texted to share news of their passing scores and thank SOAP for strengthening their education! SOAP collected donated surgical implants and supplies that we took with us in February. We used many during our visit, but left the extras with KCMC. These implants continue to be given to patients in need! An eight year old boy received one just last month! Click on the links below to read about his surgery on Facebook or Instagram:
With our friends from another non-profit, Handzania, SOAP team members, once again, hosted an orthopedist in training from Tanzania, Dr. Ali. He stayed with us for two weeks of his traveling fellowship in the US, learning new skills and techniques.
 |
SOAP’s 2025 Plans
Plans are already underway for SOAP’s next trip to Tanzania in February 2025! As before, we will stay the month and bring 2 senior orthopedic residents with us, in addition to 4 orthopedic staff specialists. With your continued help, SOAP will once again sponsor surgeries for patients that are unable to pay the approximately $160 surgical fee. These surgeries will allow increased teaching opportunities and give the gift of healing and mobilization to patients in need.
Our Big Announcement!
SOAP has partnered with another nonprofit, Project C.U.R.E, to give a shipping container full of orthopedic supplies to KCMC! Project C.U.R.E. will fill the container with donated materials and SOAP will fund the shipping costs. This will provide free materials to the hospital, but even more crucially, items that are not available in Tanzania! To ship a container to Africa, and then transport it over land to KCMC, will cost SOAP an estimated $40,000. While this is a large sum, the value of the container’s contents will far exceed that! We are incredibly fortunate to have already secured a donated fracture table! This is a specialized (ie, very expensive!) table that patients lie on in the OR during surgeries. We can’t wait to see what other items we will obtain! If you are affiliated with a hospital or surgery center that is replacing OR equipment, please let us know! Perhaps KCMC can benefit from the used ones!
 |
Our Ask
We are both excited and humbled by SOAP’s impact over this past year! This is solely made possible by generous donations from you, our dear friends and families! We welcome you to join in SOAP’s mission to enhance orthopedic knowledge and techniques among young surgeons, while improving patient access to care. If you are able, please consider donating to fund a patient’s surgery (or two or three!) and help us ship needed equipment to KCMC. Even if you are not able to donate at this time, please follow SOAP’s work — celebrate our triumphs, commiserate with our speed bumps, share our mission with others, and send us prayers and Godspeed on our journey
With love and gratitude to you all,
Jen
Executive Director, SOAP
SOAP Board of Directors:
Bobby Erdin, Chair
Matt Braswell
Ginny Casey
Jonathan Faggart, Vice-Chair
Jason Halvorson
Natalie Marenghi
 |